Prince August thanks Goethe for sending him two letters and a copy of Mahomet. He notes that he has been as sick as last Spring and 1796 since 28th November, adding that he feels so weak that it is as if he helped Napoleon to settle and unpack the Egyptian pyramids in St Claud. He claims that this is why he can’t compare Mahomet wit the original, instead looking at it as a German masterpiece; Voltaire made Muhammad too evil a companion.

Prince August apologises for the late return of his family book on the part of himself an the undersigned (W. Schlick, M.A. von Thümmel, Frackenbergs, and S.), making especial note of an entry by one ‘S.S.’ dated 8th April. He notes that he recruited a well-known prosaic and poetic writer, Voltaire, whom he highly values for the performance, quoting from Voltaire’s Stances Irregulières. He then turns to politics, mentioning Napoleon, before returning to the family book, noting that nobody understood the deep meaning of S.S.’s entry for they could not recognise the forest for the trees. He ends with references to the witch’s meal in Faust.

August praises Schiller’s Jungfrau von Orleans, which he believes has defeated Voltaire’s La Pucelle d’Orleans.

Prince August expresses his joy at learning of Goethe’s improved health and thanks Goethe for the fragments of Rameaus Neffen that he sent. He suggests that Goethe translate Voltaire’s Le pauvre diable as there are no poems of this genre in Germany.